[SS] Chapter 9: Apparently more than just stars fall from the heavens

I was falling, from outer space. Rapidly. Forget terminal velocity, I was seeing stars pass me by. I was probably moving faster than the speed of light. Before I could sigh in exasperation, a form lit up in my vision.

It was Chaos. She floated near me while I fell. Or was she falling with me? I really couldn’t tell.

“Well Godling, this is it. You made it through the whole process and are about to be sent to your new world. Just before you go, the Gods and Goddesses you’ve met so far would like to say goodbye. Myself included. I hope you enjoy your new world Godling to be, and good luck!”

With that, she remained where she was at, while I continued to fall. The Gods and Goddesses I’d met along the way started to pass me by before I could say anything.

Order, “Do your best and don’t give into despair Godling.”

Knowledge, “Satiety isn’t a stat you can see, so make sure to eat plenty of food and drink plenty of water, okay?”

Craft, “Make sure to go out and test your skills to the fullest Godling, they’re my best work yet after all. Ho Ho.”

Misfortune, “I’ll be rooting for my cur- you, I mean you, Godling, of course heh~”

Item, “I know you’ll put the items you chose to good use Godling. All I have to say is good luck to ya. Ha Ha.”

Gaia, “I’ll be waiting for you to return Godling. I’ll be eagerly waiting to be regaled by your stories.”

Angel, “Try your best to make the world a better place Godling.”

Demon, “Go out there and kick some ass Godling! I’m rooting for ya.”

I looked up as they all passed me by and I felt tears start to come to my eyes. I had died and been overwhelmed from start to finish, but I hadn’t just been thrust into a shitty situation and left to fend for myself. I had been patiently worked with from beginning to end.  Given explanations, taught, given space, guided. Everyone, all of them, had helped me along the way. And they wanted me to succeed, they wanted me to return, to take my place as an equal among them.

They wanted me to win even more than I did.

I wouldn’t disappoint them.

“I’m going to come back! Wait for me!”

My old life was over and my new life was just beginning. It had hurt, still did, that I would never see my friends and family again. It hadn’t been long enough to even process it, let alone truly mourn for a loss of that magnitude. But now, seeing everyone wish me well, I knew I had gained as well.

I had gained a truly weird and fucked up family. But honestly? That sounded about right. It felt like one weight of many had been removed from my chest.

I fell from the heavens with a light heart and when I opened my “eyes” well, I couldn’t. For I was a slime and slimes were blind.

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.

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Alright. Step 1: See.

Sadly, that was not something that was innate. No, instead I felt as I was a slimy, gelatinous blob, but I ignored that feeling entirely. It would have been overwhelming to say the least but thank the Gods I had chosen [Natural Instincts].

[Natural Instincts] - Innately understand the intricacies of your new body.

My skills were different but one thing at a time. Right now, I needed [True Sight] to activate.

[True Sight] - See without restriction.

Sure, but how. I clamped down on my rising panic. The exhaustion from earlier made that not as hard as it should be. Skills were new, despite them literally being grafted onto my soul. No, now being innately part of my soul. So, so they were like my arms or my eyes. Something I just did. I wanted to see, but what I was trying to do was open my eyes. Things I didn’t have.

No, focus, instead, let me try and see.

Suddenly, I was overwhelmed. But only for a moment. All around me were trees and they seemed humungous. It took me a second to realize they weren’t large, I was just really small. I moved forward (don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Just let your body take the lead.) and started to explore where I had landed. Well… it was a forest. A thought struck me and before I could forget, I moved back to my exact starting position.

I tried to activate [Melt].

[Melt] - Melt up to steel tier items. Some materials are naturally resistant.

Tried being the key word. It was like, it was like I was trying to do things with my mind or body and that simply wasn’t how skills worked. It was deeper, around the soul level, even for skills that weren’t actually part of my soul. And I had absolutely 0 experience in that field. It was like a baby trying to walk. It has all the abilities and functions, but it’s never had to do it before.

I don’t know how long I struggled until I calmed down and simply willed myself to melt the ground. And finally, it started working. That was going to take some getting used to. It was like thinking in concepts instead of words. Like imagining the color yellow instead of the word yellow in your mind. It wasn’t really hard but a lifetime of that not being how I thought or interacted with the world meant there’d be a learning curve.

When I felt the grass I had been sitting on was well and truly melted, I slimed myself away and looked behind me. Yup. A circular melted well, circle. This would be my starting point. Which means I’d be stuck in a 30 mile radius around this point.

Now before I moved on, let me look at my status

[General/Crown/Evolution/Dungeon

*Name Pending*

Free stat points: 195

HP 100/100

MP 50/50

STR: 2

AGI: 2

DEX: 2

CON: 2

END: 4

INT: 2

WIS: 2

SPI: 2

Astra: 11

Skills:

Physicals Skills:

[Melt]

[Absorb]

[Enhanced Healing]

[Physical Resistance (Piercing) T1]

Magical Skills:

[Magic Skill: (Dark) T2]

[Magic Diet]

[Spirit Hands]

General Skills:

[Natural instincts]

[Danger Sense]

[Universal Speech]

Special Skills:

[True Sight]

[Astra Acclimation]

[Astra Manipulation]

[Increased Astra Accumulation x7 (128x)]]

Holy mackerel. That’s a long sheet of paper. I’ll have to figure out some way to close skills later. But right now… aren’t I really weak?! I need to fix that right now before a wandering breeze kills me! Now, a responsible, smart slime would take their time, make a build, follow some kind of strategy…. And nope! I don’t like stats!

[Free stat points: 42

HP 100/100 (120/120)

MP 50/50 (60/60)

STR: 20

AGI: 20

DEX: 20

CON: 20

END: 20

INT: 20

WIS: 20

SPI: 20]

I hadn’t confirmed it yet. And points in CON and SPI increased HP and MP at 1 to 1 and 2 to 1. But now I was floundering just a tiny bit. It was possible to put points in HP and MP directly, to raise your maximum. But it doesn’t raise at 1 point. It’s 6 for HP and 4 for MP. I almost got caught in the trap of making difficult decisions before I decided to just say screw it.

[Free stat points: 0

HP: 260/260

MP: 140/140

STR: 20

AGI: 20

DEX: 20

CON: 20

END: 22

INT: 20

WIS: 20

SPI: 20]

Perfect. I hit confirm.

And locked up, in body, mind, and soul.

Have you ever been to a really loud metal concert? Or been to a gym and ran for a few miles where you were feeling the burn? Felt enlightenment or magic seep through your pores? Felt your mind buckle and expand? Your body rearrange itself? Your everything change in a million ways all at once?

That and so much more crashed into me. Soon, I got to find that yes, a slime could indeed pass out.

.

.

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I woke up blind, which was annoying. I opened my ‘eyes’ which was still not a natural thing to me quite yet. I literally didn’t remember what happened or how long I had been out. I pressed confirm and… blank. Just utterly blank.

But I sure felt different. Maybe becoming 10x everything that I was, was a bit of a rash decision. And now, I was kinda suffering from the most insane high possible for a living organism. I was slime, I knew that instinctually, but I still felt like I could run a mile, bench press a truck, dance around a storm of bullets, take a bat to the face without flinching, heal from any wound, beat even a grand master at chess, out perform the greatest of mages, and out think sherlock holmes himself.

I don’t think a human being, or any creature, was meant to feel this way and… I kinda… lost my mind?

“WOO HOO BABY! FUCK Y’ALLL!!!!!!! I’M GONNA EAT A DRAGON AND AIN’T NOBODY GONNA STOP ME!”

Of course in slime that was all,

“BLURB GLURB GLURGGLE GLURG!”

With cute bubbles popping out and everything.

I ran and ran and ran and holy crap I was running. I was rolling at insane speeds and it was so quick! I dodged a tree and another tree and slammed into one and then another and another and kept on moving. I sped up and down and boxed the trees and spat out Astra and I didn’t even know how I did that and then shot out bolts of darkness and then found my items that I had been given and then threw them at things and absorbed and melted stuff and went absolutely fucking crazy.

Time passed by and eventually, my absolute high of insanity edged away and I felt like I was waking up from a trance. I looked around the now thoroughly destroyed clearing. I had spawned in the midst of a few trees, not too close together and they all looked like a really stupid slime had decided to try and melt through them all. My items were scattered all around and I had somehow managed to get my bag stuck in a branch above me. Most of the grass was absolutely wrecked and with some extreme embarrassment I noticed that my “insane running speed” had been… very slow. I hadn’t moved more than about 15 feet from where I had started.  Sure, some of that was me just going in circles for a while but I still felt stupid. Agility didn’t even work like that, not really.

Agility - Your physical speed, every (1) point increased your overall speed by .2%, including physical reaction and general action speed.

Sure, 20 points made me 4% faster. That wasn’t exactly super speed. And I had gone insane and wrecked the clearing. I sighed. Now that that had worn off, I needed to collect my items. I just ignored my bag, I’d get it later. I was tired. Really, really tired. The stats had probably helped but I needed sleep.

I tried to grab my items… and forgot I was a slime. At least that explained how I had gotten the bag in the tree. I didn’t even try and focus, I simply willed two spirit hands to exist. Actually grabbing something threw me for a loop though. I was, a slime. That was my new body and life but the disconnect had been erased because of a skill. Having actual hands nearly ruined that disconnect and if any skill was working overtime, it was that one. Having sudden and intense body dysmorphia didn’t sound like a fun time so I quickly grabbed the bag from the tree, threw my items in, and went back to where I had first woken up. If anything wanted to attack me, they probably would have by now or been scared off. Actually… how much noise could I have realistically been making? I shook my head of those night time thoughts. I needed sleep.

I hadn’t slept since before I died and I had already been tired then. It took me only moments to pass out.

I didn’t dream at all but it was a good sleep. I needed this. A great, relaxing sleep that let me burn out everything that had happened to me. To help me reset and rejuvenate myself.

It was, of course, ruined when I woke up to being eaten.